On 2008-07-19 15:09:03 +0100, "The Medway Handyman"
said:

Andy Hall wrote:
On 2008-07-19 09:56:18 +0100, "The Medway Handyman"
said:

Currently she is an Emergency Medical Technician Grade 3 to use LAS
terminology, next step is a 6 week residential course to become a
full blown Paramedic. They then get an extra few grand a year.

Something at least. In the days when ambulance staff were little
more than glorified taxi drivers, those kind of figures might have
been reasonable

One way to realy **** her off is to call her an ambulance driver!

I know. That's why I didn't use that word.




I'd say her current level of training is easily degree standard,
paramedic is equivalent to a masters or whatever. Except with pass
rates of 86% + to qualify.

Only about 20% of LAS front line staff are actual paramedics, most
are EMT2 & above.

That's very disappointing. They all should be if they are doing
emergency work.

EMT's are very highly trained, you wouldn't need to worry about being
treated by them. It takes a lot of time & training to become a paramedic.



She can administer 18 drugs, paramedic can give 27 (the extra 9
being mainly morphine based). She can't canulate or intubate a
patient despite being a qualified phlebotomist, only a paramedic can
do that.

I can kind of understand these. IANAD, but have had both procedures
recently plus a large number of phlebotomy visits. Dealing with a
canula involves avoidance of air introduction and use of saline to
keep it open as I recall. Not that it's difficult, AFAICS, but I
think I would someone who knows what they are doing.

Intubation is another thing entirely. Proper maintenance of airway
is obviously vital. I think that I would want someone well
qualified dealing with that, even in an emergency situation.



She doesn't want to go into management, she wants to remain
operational (or useful as she calls it).

Let's hope she remains an idealist in this sense. One of the
reasons that I am so anti the current NHS setup is that it doesn't
reward in the right places. It's a pity that reward isn't based on
outcome, although that's probably not practical. Even so, it's very
clear to me that ambulance paramedics can make an enormous difference
to outcome and so they really ought to be rewarded for that. Granted,
as you say, one doesn't go into this for the money, but this does not
give the employers the right to exploit.

The Guvmint targets make you laugh. Category 'A' calls (life threatening)
have o be attended within 8 mins from 'reciept' of call (even if it took 3
mins for the controller to calm the person down enough to actually get the
address),

If they arrive in under 8 mins & the paitent dies, its counted as meeting
the target, if over 8 mins & the patient lives its a failure!

You couldn't make it up.

Oh dear. Wrong measurements.....